


Weekdays

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Angst, Canon, Drama, Future, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-20
Updated: 2006-03-20
Packaged: 2018-12-27 00:36:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12070170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: It's been two years since Justin left, and Brian's just starting to realize how much everything has changed.





	Weekdays

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

  
Author's notes: My first QAF fic, so please be nice!  


* * *

The familiar clinking of silverware against silverware rang through the Liberty Diner as half a dozen very familiar occupants sat the counter, waiting for their orders or just socializing before work, as the case often was. It had been a long two years since Mel and Lindz and Justin had left, and to some, it was easy to forget that they had once very normally held a place in this circle—and that Blake had not. But two years had changed things, had changed all of them.

Two years had made Brian Kinney thirty-six, and he found, to his surprise, that thirty-six wasn’t much different than thirty-five. He was quickly passing his mid-thirties, and yet he didn’t much care—because it wasn’t even much different than thirty had been, except that when he was thirty, he had had a beautiful blond boy curled up in his bed any night that he pleased, and dozens of other men there when his desires were different.

Yet Brian had found, even after he had rebuilt and reopened Babylon a year ago, that he couldn’t go out and fuck all those nameless, faceless guys anymore. He couldn’t do it unless he was so drunk that he forgot that Justin wouldn’t be there when he got home, to detox him once again from nights of drugs and sex and debauchery that he might have just _convinced_ himself he needed. 

Everyone had expected him to return to his old ways after Justin had left, to try to bury his pain in those same self-destructive anodynes he had once had—and he had expected it too, before he found out that he just _couldn’t_. He’d tried, a few times, but he hadn’t enjoyed it. It wasn’t even half as good as listening to Justin’s voice on the phone all the way in New York and stroking himself gently—even when Justin wasn’t _trying_ to get him off.

The phone calls had been frequent, at first. Justin had called him once a week (from the cell phone that Brian paid the bills for, just for those purposes), but then New York had taken over, and Justin had grown busy finding studio space and painting and drawing and meeting with art dealers and art critics and gallery owners and the calls had siphoned off to about once a week. 

For some reason, it was always Thursday. Thursday night, without fail, whether Brian was at the office or at the loft or even at Babylon, surveying the crowds that still made him so much money—the crowds that he had once been a part of—his cell phone would ring, and it would be Justin.

It wasn’t much shock the first time that Justin missed a Thursday. Brian had almost been expecting it, for months. And the other man had waited until the next Thursday to call and apologize, probably because he took some sort of comfort in their bizarre Thursday ritual and he didn’t want to tempt fate yet again. There was a story about a gallery owner and a meeting he hadn’t expected and a possibility of showing a couple of his paintings alongside a few other “emerging artists” at a major gallery in New York.

Brian, of course, had been properly congratulatory. He had wanted to fly up to New York to see it—he had wanted to but Justin had immediately dismissed the idea, and Brian had had dozens of doubt-filled reasons in his head for why Justin wouldn’t want him there, but he promptly forgot those reasons in a bottle of Beam.

But he hadn’t been much shocked when Justin had missed another Thursday, and then another, and Brian knew that he should be grateful because the boy was finally doing what Brian had always told him he should do. He was _living,_ actually taking part in a life that was entirely independent of Brian and his money and all his bullshit. Brian wanted to be happy, but all he could be was selfish.

For awhile, Brian knew that Theodore had noticed Brian’s proclivity to start leaving work early on Thursday evenings, but he’d only mentioned it once, and Brian hadn’t explained. But Brian knew that his accountant couldn’t have failed to notice when he slowly started staying later on Thursdays, slowly stared to forget the bizarre ritual that had sustained him for months. This time, though, Theodore had enough sense not to comment on it.

It had been inevitable, really, that the calls would one day stop altogether. Brian had tried not to be bitter, especially after watching all the happy couples around him in varying degrees of domestic bliss. Debbie had the detective. Ted had Blake. Michael, as always, had Ben. And every time that Brian spoke on the phone to Mel and Lindz, he knew that they still had each other, and the kids.

It was disturbing for Brian to realize that he had the most in common with Emmett those days. Emmett, too, was alone. Brian had never thought that there would be _any_ situation in which he’d have the most in common with Emmett, but time changed things, and Brian had just begun to realize exactly how much.

* * *

Brian’s coffee cup clinked on its saucer as one of the new waiters placed it in front of him. It was some other drag queen, and Brian couldn’t for the life of him remember any name to attach to the face, but he supposed it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Brian was in one of the only serving establishments in the whole city of Pittsburgh where one could be regularly served by a drag queen and no one would bat an eyelash. That was one part of Brian’s life he still reveled in.

The others were talking, about something or other—about Hunter attending community college or something equally meaningless to him, and Brian couldn’t do anything but let the conversation wash over him as caffeine very thankfully overwhelmed his system while he sat back surveying the others around him. Hunter was attending college and Ted and Blake were thinking of buying a real house together and Mel and Lindz were raising their two children very happily across the border—and Brian was still staying in the same loft alone, owning another house that he never lived in.

At a break in the conversation, Brian finally took an opportunity to speak. “Theodore, I’ll be taking off of work for a few days.” He said it dryly, absent-mindedly like it didn’t matter, and he wondered if any of them would guess how much it really did. He didn’t really have to tell the other man; after all, _he_ was the boss and he had the right to do what he wanted.

The silence seemed thicker now at the change of subject, and it could have been because Brian hadn’t taken a day off of work in months, even when the others told him that he should, that he looked exhausted and he needed some rest. This clearly went through at least some of their minds as they all stared at him for a few brief moments as if he had just spontaneously sprouted a cock growing out of his forehead or something. 

“I hope you don’t expect _me_ to tell Cynthia, because I like the idea of keeping my head.” Ah, Theodore. Part of Brian reveled in the fact that his accountant had finally learned how to verbally spar with him, as unworthy and opponent as he usually was. Brian just raised an eyebrow in his usual way and took a sip of his coffee—which had too much cream, but he didn’t feel like complaining.

“No, Theodore; I’m a big boy, and I can tell her myself.” Brian’s words were thick with sarcasm, and that seemed to put the strange tension at ease, because it was _familiar_. “I’ve made worse announcements to her and kept my head,” he quipped after a moment, with a pointed look at Ted, “though that’s probably because I pay her.”

Half-hearted chuckles went through the group. It seemed to be like that a lot since Justin had left. Brian couldn’t help that overbearing feeling that they all looked at him with pity now. They all knew that he had lost the love of his life, and after two years of not seeing the boy, none of them knew anymore whether the move to New York was _really_ temporary. That fact had started to make them even more uneasy after the past few months, especially since Brian wouldn’t even acknowledge it.

“Why the sudden urge to take off, Brian?” That was Debbie, Brian knew without turning, because it was impossible to mistake Debbie’s voice for anyone else’s. And of course Debbie would be the first to ask, because her balls were twice the size of _any_ of theirs.

Brian contemplated for a second, thought about whether or not he _should_ tell them the truth and whether or not he actually _wanted_ to. And finally, Brian just sighed, looking down into his coffee as he very quietly said, “Justin’s coming down from New York for a couple of days.”

If Brian thought that the earlier silence was tense, this one was even worse. None of them knew exactly what to say to that, because they’d all been simply afraid to even say Justin’s name for over a month, and there it finally was, between them. And again, Debbie was the only one who actually had the balls to speak.

“Are you going to let him out of the bedroom long enough for the rest of us to say hello?” she asked with a knowing grin, but her words sounded a bit flat.

Brian shrugged. Somehow, the conversation had already begun to make him tired, and he didn’t have the energy to come up with some verbal jab that they all expected. “I can’t tell you not to see him, but if you want to, you probably have to come to us,” Brian said, his words uncharacteristically sincere. “I’m not sure either of us will be in the mood to drive back to the city.”

That remark was too much for Michael to remain silent. “ _Back_ to the city? What do you mean?”

Brian tried to sound both nonchalant and cocky, two things he supposed he was very good at. “Oh, I didn’t tell you?” Brian inquired, feigning surprise. He _really_ needed a cigarette, and part of him was wishing he hadn’t brought this up in the first place. “I bought him a house, before he left. It’s in West Virginia. I’ll draw you a map or something.”

Michael raised an eyebrow at him, one which clearly said, ‘Nice try, Brian.’ His words, though, were laced with incredulity. “You’ve had this house for two years and you haven’t thought to tell any of us?” Brian’s bullshit obviously hadn’t fooled him that time.

Brian just shrugged nonchalantly, not saying that he had kept the secret both because he wasn’t sure he’d ever go back and because there was a little part of his life with Justin that he somehow wanted to keep a secret. He didn’t tell them that he still paid a maid and a gardener to go there every week to take care of the upkeep of the house he hadn’t stepped foot in since Justin had left. What he _did_ say was, “It must have slipped my mind.”

Ben cut in at that, obviously feeling some empathetic hurt and confusion through his husband. “I thought you were still living at the loft,” Ben said, his voice even but his tone a bit uneasy.

“I am,” Brian replied, giving no more explanation than that as he took the last sip of his coffee. Brian watched the others exchange a look and finally, Michael turned to him again and spoke.

“You’ve been keeping this house for two years and you’re not even _living_ in it? How can you afford that?”

Brian gave Michael this look that so clearly said, ‘You don’t even have the faintest idea how rich I am, do you?’ before he sighed. “It’s not for me; it’s for Justin,” Brian said, in the most open, honest display he had given all morning. He couldn’t meet their eyes, but he felt them exchanging looks, as if trying to defer to each other to figure out what to say. No one came up with anything appropriate.

That was Monday.

* * *

It had been another bleak Thursday when he had gotten the call. He had been staying late at Kinnetik, finishing the readying the presentation for the new Brown Athletics campaign when his cell phone had started ringing. He had answered it absently, without thinking about the day of the week because Thursdays had long since ceased to matter since the calls stopped coming.

Justin’s voice had shocked him, but not as much as the younger man’s words. He couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken to his lover (his lover? could he still call him that?), but Justin was somehow asking him if he could come down to Pittsburgh to visit for a few days. There had been a semi-major gallery that had given him his own show, Justin told him. All his art had sold out the day before—Wednesday.

Brian had agreed without thinking about it, had told Justin that he could come down because if he had ever been able to say no to Justin, that ability had fled him long ago. They had made arrangements for Justin to fly in on Tuesday, where Brian would pick him up at the airport. They’d go back to the house—then they’d have to make it on their own from there.

It was only after Brian hung up that he realized he had no idea how to react around Justin anymore. Things had changed. They’d gotten older. They’d grown apart. Brian knew that he wasn’t the same person he’d been two years ago, and he had no doubts that Justin had changed as well. It had been two years since he’d actually seen his lover’s face in something that wasn’t a photograph.

Theodore had chosen that moment to come in and ask if Brian needed him to stay later to finish anything else. Brian recognized it as a blatant attempt by Theodore to try to watch over him. Debbie had probably asked him to do it, because they all had been, for months. Brian just shook his head and returned to placing all the finishing touches on the presentation.

“Go home to your wife, Theodore,” Brian told him blandly. Surprisingly, Ted just rolled his eyes and took a step toward Brian. It had taken a long time, but he’d become mostly immune to Brian’s verbal barbs. He clasped a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Don’t stay too late. You don’t have to finish this all. That’s what you have employees for.” It was Theodore’s way of saying, ‘Go home, you asshole.’ Brian chose to ignore the comment.

“Good _night_ , Theodore,” Brian said instead, very pointedly. Ted sighed took his hand off Brian’s shoulder and a moment later, Brian heard the doors of his office closing as the other man left.

He looked over at the clock on the computer and saw that it was already Friday.

* * *

Brian picked Justin up at the airport on Tuesday as they had planned. He almost hadn’t recognized the younger man except that he’d recognize Justin anywhere, even covered in soot and ash the way he had been after the explosion. It didn’t matter that Justin’s hair was long again or that he’d lost a little weight—except it did, because this wasn’t the Justin he remembered. It didn’t matter that it was raining outside and the large windows next to the airport terminal cast the grayish-blue tint of the sky onto Justin’s skin, making him look almost sickly pale. It didn’t matter because when Justin’s big blue eyes turned onto him, they lit up in that same way they had been doing since Justin was seventeen years old, and Brian could almost forget that the last two years hadn’t happened at all.

_Almost_.

Part of Brian expected Justin to run to him like the overexcited teenager he hadn’t been for years, and that same part of him was surprised when Justin _walked_ over—albeit very quickly and with a huge, infectious grin on his face—and wrapped his arms around Brian’s neck and kissed him full on the lips, fuckall to what anyone in the airport thought of it.

Brian couldn’t help but melt into the kiss, because Justin’s lips were so _familiar_ , and it was difficult for Brian to admit that he hadn’t kissed another man—not like _this_ —in months, and he didn’t know if Justin could tell that, and part of him was afraid that he could, that he could tell that Brian was a fucking shell of his former self without Justin around, that Brian couldn’t even do drugs and fuck the way he used to without knowing he’d have Justin to come home to.

He’d probably think that it was Brian, sacrificing his personality again to try to be what he _thought_ Justin wanted. He’d probably think that Brian was trying to change himself, when all Brian had been trying to do for the first month after Justin had gone was make himself change _back_ into what Justin may have still thought he was, and he hadn’t been able to. He’d changed.

And when Justin pulled away, he kissed just below Brian’s jawbone in that adorable way that had always gotten to Brian and breathed, “ _I missed you_.”

And that did Brian in, and he knew that for a few days, at least he could _pretend_ that the last two years hadn’t happened. He could _pretend_ that they could have that ridiculous domestic bliss all their friends now had and Brian had once scoffed at. And he led Justin toward the luggage carousel with a hand on the small of Justin’s back and the tiniest grin touching the corners of his mouth.

And for a moment, he was happy.

* * *

The first thing that Justin said when he stepped inside the house was, “No one lives here.”

And he had been right, of course. Brian hadn’t set foot in the house since Justin had left, had given orders to movers and decorators to put in the furniture that he had bought to fill the rest of the house, and even _he_ hadn’t seen how it had turned out. The only person who had seen the inside of the house since then was the maid who came every week to clean the house that no one lived in. Justin had always been able to see right past Brian’s bullshit, and Brian saw no need to lie to him anymore.

“No,” Brian said simply, and Justin’s eyes had flicked over all the furnishings that were two years old but still looked new because they were all newly dusted and cleaned despite the fact that no one had ever sat on the chairs or eaten on the tables or used all the appliances in the kitchen. Brian couldn’t tell if that fact made his lover sad, and Justin clearly didn’t feel the need to enlighten him; just put down his bags in the foyer and grasped Brian by the hand, leading him up to the room they had long ago decided would be their bedroom.

It was the one room Justin had picked out the furnishings for before he left; it was the one room that looked familiar to both of them because they had been in it, albeit briefly, before they had both abandoned the forlorn house two years ago. And apparently Justin thought that they had a better way to communicate than just talking, because once they were through the threshold, Justin was kissing him, slowly, languidly, and for once Brian let him control the kiss because he’d finally acknowledged that Justin had far more control over this whole thing than Brian had _ever_ had.

And they made their way over to the bed and they were undressing each other, and this was _always_ familiar, because their bodies still knew each other even if their minds were still a bit in chaos, even though they’d both changed a bit physically over the years; they’d both gotten older, but their bodies still spoke to each other in the same voice. And again, it almost seemed like nothing had changed.

When Brian had Justin naked on the bed, it was familiar; he could keep up the illusion that this was his life, that he could come back to this house and ravish Justin like this anytime he wanted, on this bed, with no one and no distance between them. Brian kissed his way down Justin’s chest, paying particular attention to every breathy gasp and every quiet murmur Justin released because he despite wanting to pretend, he knew that he didn’t have long to savor this before Justin would be gone again.

It was only when Brian’s lips reached Justin’s hip that he noticed something that hadn’t been there before—he noticed a long, raised scar just next to Justin’s hipbone. He’d never seen this scar; Justin hadn’t told him how he’d gotten it. Brian placed a light kiss on the raised, damaged skin before asking, “What’s this from?”

“I tripped and ran into the edge of my friend’s countertop in the dark. It was about a year ago. It left a pretty bad scar, surprisingly.”

Brian’s only response was, “Hm,” as he let his tongue trail over the sensitive skin, causing Justin to shiver. He didn’t bother asking who this friend was, or what he was doing wandering around their home in the dark. He didn’t ask if this friend was male or female. He didn’t ask any of the questions that rose to the top of his mind. Instead, he continued kissing his way down Justin’s body until he found that familiar hardness and took Justin’s length into his mouth.

But the illusion was broken. This Justin wasn’t the same Justin he had driven to the airport two years ago to go off to New York. That dream where Justin would be waiting here at the house every night when Brian came home to it was just that—a dream. It wasn’t reality. 

This—these few days he had with Justin, after not speaking to the other man in over a month, after not seeing him in two years since Justin had gone to New York… _this_ was his reality.

* * *

“My God, Justin, have you _eaten_ since you left?” was the first thing Debbie had exclaimed upon seeing the young man again for the first time. Brian had, quite truthfully, given them a map (he hadn’t drawn it, though; he’d printed it off the internet) to help them find the house, and _they_ had all come in an entourage to see Justin after all that time. Debbie had come with food in Tupperware containers, some of which Michael and Ben and Hunter also held. “Well it’s a good thing I decided to bring some food from the diner, isn’t it?”

Brian looked over Debbie’s shoulder at the Novotny-Bruckner clan, and they all just gave him a helpless look and shrugged their shoulders. Justin accepted the food gracefully and led the others into the kitchen, to put the food down while they both gave a tour of the house they barely remembered to all the others (Ted, Emmett and Blake having arrived just a few minutes later). They all _oohed_ and _ahhed_ at all the correct intervals, and Emmett asked Brian who his decorator had been. Debbie let out a characteristic exclamation of, “My God, Brian, this is a fucking _mansion_!” It was all so familiar.

It was funny, the way Justin looked as if he fit perfectly into the house while at the same time looking like a complete stranger to everything. It was funny the way that Brian’s thoughts kept shifting from the way that Justin was so much the same to all the subtle ways he was different. It was more than just his longer hair and his thinner frame and his scar—it was in the way he carried himself, in the bits of light and darkness in his eyes, and Brian realized that he had almost no idea what had happened in Justin’s life for the past two years, despite their initial Thursday night telephone rendezvous plans. Something fundamental _about_ Justin had changed, but he was still Justin, and that was also readily apparent.

They all sat down afterward and ate the food that Debbie had brought, and over what was either a late lunch or an early dinner, they all bombarded Justin with questions about his life, questions that Brian found that _he_ didn’t even know the answer to. And Brian heard for the first time about the gallery owner who was a complete asshole but had probably basically launched Justin’s career. He heard for the first time about the girl who lived in the apartment next door to Justin, the single mother with a little toddler who Justin had taught to paint _just like him_ on the days that he offered to watch the young boy for her. He heard for the first time about what Justin thought of the New York club scene, and he had begun, inexplicably, to think about how fast Justin’s life seemed to be moving while Brian just sat in Pittsburgh, going to the same job every day and amassing wealth he didn’t really have the time or the motivation to enjoy.

He heard for the first time that Justin would probably be able to move back to Pittsburgh within the year (or to West Virginia, as the case may be) because all the critics were predicting that he’d become so popular by then that the demand for his work would probably transcend his location in the world. Brian wasn’t sure whether his shock at that announcement was the a good sort of shock or a bad one, but it was clear to everyone at the table that it was the first time he’d heard that news too.

Brian excused himself from the others and went outside.

Justin found him there less than five minutes later, smoking a cigarette and looking out at the snow that had fallen during the day, and it reminded him of the first time he had brought Justin to see the home he had so valiantly dubbed ‘Britin.’

“You don’t seem happy,” Justin said as he came up next to Brian, plucking the cigarette out of Brian’s mouth and taking a drag himself before handing it back to the older man. Brian didn’t protest to this, just took the cigarette back.

“What do you mean, Sunshine? I’m fucking ecstatic,” Brian proclaimed with a cigarette between his lips, though his tone of voice said otherwise. He took a long drag as he felt Justin’s eyes on him, studying him, trying to read him as he once had.

“Liar,” Justin accused, his tone half playful and half truthful. Brian turned, dropping his cigarette and crushing it beneath his shoe as he looked down at his lover. He seemed uncertain for a long second before sliding one arm around Justin and pulling the other man close.

“I guess I just got used to not having you here,” Brian said, and he was as shocked that he was coming right out and saying that as Justin seemed to be. “I’m not sure how to act anymore. When you come back for good, I’ll learn to get over it.” Brian had to forcefully keep himself from saying ‘ _if_ you come back for good.’

Justin wrapped his arms around Brian’s midsection, burying his face in the older man’s neck. Justin’s nose was cold against the warmth of Brian’s throat, his lips nearly frozen as the pressed themselves into the little hollow they found there. And even if Brian hadn’t _said_ ‘if,’ Justin had clearly heard it.

“I’ll be coming back here; I promise. And I’ll call you every day that I can until then.”

It was a promise that Brian wasn’t sure he believed this time. He expected that Justin would do it for awhile…and then the calls would slowly siphon off again until they almost never came at all. Justin could find out that he loved New York too much. Justin could decide that he wanted to stay there, not come back to shitty Pittsburgh and this remarkably quaint almost-mansion in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia to be with a man twelve years his senior when he had his whole life ahead of him. Not when Justin had finally gotten a taste of what life _really_ was.

Brian had doubts, but he didn’t voice them. Instead, he lit another cigarette and rested his chin atop Justin’s head as they stood silently in each other’s arms.

That was Wednesday.

* * *

No call came that Thursday, of course, but Brian _did_ wake up with his cock in Justin’s mouth, so he supposed that that was better. It had been an interesting wake-up call, and Brian had almost forgotten how much he loved waking up with another warm body beside him. Well, not just any warm body—preferably _this_ warm body.

He had forgotten how much he loved to have this feeling—not just a blowjob, but a blowjob from _this_ man in particular, this man who knew his body better almost than he did, who knew just how to flick his tongue and just how much pressure to provide with his cheeks and just how much he could use his teeth and his throat to drive Brian absolutely wild.

He had forgotten how good a lazy fuck in the morning could be, forgot the feeling of the sensuous slide of hips together in a perfectly synchronized dance that only came from years and years of practice. Their bodies moved together like they had been made for each other, and it had taken awhile for them to get used to each other again, but once they had, it was mid-blowing and amazing even when they were both half asleep.

Brian had forgotten what Justin sounded like when he whined and groaned and gasped when Brian rolled his hips just the right way, when his cock brushed against the younger man’s prostate and made him lose all coherence whatsoever. He forgot how much he loved this, because it was easy to forget after two years of not having it. And suddenly, Brian wished that he _hadn’t_ been able to forget at all, and this time he wanted to imprint the whole experience permanently onto his memory so that he’d never forget again how badly he _needed_ Justin here, beneath him.

Not because Justin was sensuous and talented with his mouth and made the most delightful noises when Brian fucked him, not because even when Justin was bottoming, he gave as good as he got, not because Justin’s face when he came was the most beautiful thing Brian had ever seen—but because there was this intensity when they fucked that Brian had long missed, there was this underlying passion that was so different than all the rest of the sex Brian had ever had in his life, and Brian had certainly had his fair share of it.

It was then that Brian realized that this was what _making love_ was. When he’d been younger, he’d always thought that ‘making love’ was just some stupid expression that straight people came up with to try to convince themselves that what they were doing was less dirty. He’d believed that making love was no different than a badly interchangeable synonym for ‘fucking’ that sentimental people used.

After two years of not having this at all, Brian realized once again the same thing that he had been constantly realizing over and over again since the moment he had met this beautiful blond boy seven years before.

Brian realized that he had been wrong. About many things. The first and foremost being that love didn’t exist at all. And it was then that Brian realized that he almost couldn’t stand to have Justin leave again. These few days were almost more hurtful than the silence. It reminded Brian of what he didn’t have.

When Justin left, Brian knew that he would return to his reality, Justin’s promises to move back permanently and to call Brian every day until then probably just a remaining figment of the fantasy Brian wanted to believe _so badly_. He didn’t know when he had become so weak, so needy.

Now he just had another thing to associate Thursdays with. After a few years, when Justin didn’t come back as he’d promised, Brian had a feeling he’d grow to hate Thursdays.

* * *

Thursday night was the hardest, because he knew that Justin was flying back to New York Friday morning. He might have stayed longer, but Brian knew that he had meetings with a few reporters, a few gallery owners, a few art critics that he had been putting off to come down here in the first place. Brian thought that perhaps Justin had wanted to celebrate his success with Brian, but Brian had a feeling that it hadn’t been much of a celebration.

When Justin awoke the next morning, he found that Brian wasn’t in bed. He’d instead found Brian sitting naked on the couch downstairs, staring absently at the slowly melting snow outside the window. Justin stood in the doorway for a long moment, watching Brian’s morose features, before he spoke. 

“I’ve fucked everything up, haven’t I?” There was a certain melancholy in Justin’s tone, and that broke Brian’s heart, because Justin was too young to sound so guilty and depressed.

“No,” Brian answered immediately, though he didn’t turn his head. “You finally did something for _you_. I can’t blame you for that.”

After a moment, Brian felt Justin’s hands on his shoulders, felt Justin press his lips to Brian’s neck. “But you’re not happy,” Justin said, repeating his earlier sentiment. Brian shrugged.

“I will be,” he said cryptically, and there was an unspoken ‘ _if you ever come back_ ’ at the end of that sentence. And again, Justin heard it even thought Brian didn’t say it, heard the pain and the uncertainty that Brian hid behind dark eyes.

“I’m _going_ to come back,” Justin said, and there was a desperate conviction in his voice, and Brian was afraid that he was also trying to convince himself. “Once I get everything settled, I’m going to come back and we’re going to fix everything.”

Brian nodded slowly, but Justin wasn’t sure if the nod was of agreement or just to appease him. “You’re going to miss your flight,” Brian said instead of responding to that. Justin sighed at the familiar avoidance tactic.

“I have a few hours,” he dismissed, coming around the couch to kiss the older man.

They fucked on the couch, and then Brian drove Justin to the airport. That was Friday.

* * *

Brian was at Babylon with Theodore on Monday night, standing on one of the catwalks and surveying the crowd almost clinically as Theodore talked to him about profit margins and quotes and disposable income and all the things that Brian always listened to with only one ear open when Brian felt his cell phone vibrating against his thigh. He didn’t think Theodore even noticed that he wasn’t listening anymore when he took it out and he saw Justin’s name on the screen.

Brian excused himself to his VIP room, which was unoccupied that evening, to take the call. It was strange, Brian thought, to be talking on the phone to Justin on a Monday. But the other man had called, and Brian could never say no to anything Justin wanted.

He called again on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday, that familiar Thursday, and Friday. And he kept calling every day in the coming months, always at the same time. After a week or so, Brian started reserving that time especially for Justin’s calls, trying to make sure that he wasn’t out, he wasn’t at work, but rather, he was at lying on the familiar blue sheets of the loft letting Justin’s voice wash over him.

The phone calls didn’t die down after a month, as Brian had almost expected. They didn’t even die down after two. Justin would occasionally miss a day, and then he’d call the next and apologize. And somehow, that gave Brian hope that _everything_ Justin had promised had been the truth, even though part of him was too cynical to hope too fervently.

It was all still an illusion, though. His real life didn’t include Justin anymore. Phone calls were just a ghostly reminder of what it had been like to have Justin sleeping beside him every night. None of it was real.

At least, not yet.

* * *

Nine months had passed when that final Thursday came. Brian couldn’t help working late that day, even through Justin’s time, because he had a campaign to pitch to a major pharmaceuticals corporation the next day for an account that could possibly even launch his fortune to the point that he could finally start thinking about acquiring a New York branch of Kinnetik he had been dreaming about for such a long time.

The phone rang, and by that time, the sound of Justin’s voice on the other end was familiar. It calmed Brian, warmed him in a way he almost wasn’t willing to admit except under various sorts of torture or at least a vaguely indescribable level of sexual ecstasy. Brian wouldn’t admit to anyone but Justin how much he looked forward to these calls. In fact, he still hadn’t told anyone else about them at all, though he had a feeling that Theodore had an idea. A few years ago, if someone had suggested to Brian that _Theodore_ would be the person who knew him best, he would have probably accused them of using various hallucinogenic drugs.

But everything had changed since then. They were all different, Brian and Justin included. Brian was still realizing how _much_ everything had changed.

Justin’s voice on the other end of the line was familiar, but his words were not. His words caused Brian’s breath to hitch in his throat, caused Brian’s heart to stop for a very brief second has he heard the words he had been so reluctant to wish for.

“I’m coming home for good,” Justin told him, a smile in his voice that Brian could hear even over the miles that separated them. 

And everything wasn’t quite right again, but Brian had an indisputable feeling that it would be, given time. Things had changed so much, but they could change again. If Justin had taught him anything about life, that was it. It was mutable, inconstant, and changing it was within their power. They’d change things again, _together_.

It was Thursday again when Brian finally realized that he’d once again have more than phone calls to sustain him.


End file.
